Afghan anger grows at slaughter of the innocents

Chris Sands, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: May 19. 2009 11:40PM UAE / May 19. 2009 7:40PM GMT

KABUL // In the afternoon heat of the Kabul spring, Ghrana sat alone in the shadows of a rehabilitation centre. Surrounded by men hooked up to catheters or walking on crutches, she recounted how she had come to be in their company – a 13-year-old girl torn apart by a war fought in the name of freedom and democracy.

She sounded neither angry nor particularly sad describing what happened during a journey to her sister’s house in the south-western province of Helmand, one morning. “I didn’t hear any shooting or anything. Then I saw red coloured bombs falling from the aeroplane,” she said.

Nine of her relatives were killed, including her mother. Ghrana lost her right leg and much of her left arm. In military parlance she and her family were all collateral damage, an unfortunate, but inevitable, consequence of war.

Each day that goes by they are joined by other men, women and children caught in a struggle that many Afghans say is more brutal than anything in their country’s history.

According to the United Nations, civilian casualties rose almost 40 per cent last year. The death toll of 2,118 was the highest since the Taliban government collapsed. Both the insurgents and Nato and American-led forces are blamed for the staggering increase.

Yet already, there are worrying signs that the body count will reach new heights this summer as the moral compass of all sides wavers badly amid the dust and fog of a conflict destined to drag on.

In the worst incident of its kind since the occupation began, 140 civilians are believed to have been killed by an air strike in Farah province this month. Their deaths caused fury here, leading to protests in the streets and public condemnations from the president, Hamid Karzai.

But across the south, east and west, few Afghans were surprised. Everywhere from Helmand and Herat to Ghazni and Nangarhar, similar scenes are playing out.

Exactly why Ghrana and her family were bombed in Musa Qala district three-and-a-half months ago may never become clear. She insists there were no Taliban in the area at the time and there is no obvious reason why her family was confused for insurgents.

Whatever the events were that led to the bombing, the results have been devastating. In a remote and violent part of one of the world’s poorest countries, she must now try to find decent medical treatment and piece her life back together. Meanwhile, her remaining relatives pray for the day when the foreign troops finally withdraw from their country.

“It will be like Eid for us,” said her uncle, Ahmed Abed, a polite 32-year-old who brought his niece to Kabul.

“The Americans know who is a Talib and who is innocent, but they don’t care. If it is a Talib or a girl, they don’t care. They are crazy. It’s like they are blinded by love. If anyone comes in front of their face, they shoot them. They never care who it is. I can accept that airplanes make mistakes, but I have seen with my own eyes them fire from a vehicle at a woman in the street.”

Mr Abed’s anger is common among Pashtuns, Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group. Predominant in the south and east, many of them were naturally suspicious of the occupation. Now, with their homes in ruins and their futures more uncertain than ever, they are downright hostile.

“We can’t even talk because if we do the Americans will say ‘he is al Qa’eda, he is a Talib’. They have arrested our tribal leaders. We can’t control whether we can walk in the road – all the control is with the Americans. We feel as though we are not from this country. We are like illegal immigrants,” Mr Abed said.

“I know one man who lost all his family members, just he is alive. Now these are the kind of people who are joining the fight. There are no Talibs and no al Qa’eda, they are all people who had their relatives killed by the Americans. We are Afghan, apologies are not enough for us.”

Mountainous and difficult terrain, a relative lack of soldiers for a country of its size, and a determination to keep troop casualties down, all mean air strikes have become a common feature of the US-led occupation.

In April, coalition planes dropped 438 bombs on Afghanistan – a record monthly total, and the fourth consecutive month the number has risen. This compared to 26 dropped in Iraq, and did not include strafing runs, helicopter gunship missions or the launching of small missiles.

Tragic mistakes are perhaps inevitable, but what worries some observers is the rate at which they seem to occur. During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama was among those who complained that American forces were “just air-raiding villages and killing civilians”. Yet in recent days his national security adviser has promised the tactic will continue, even though the Afghan president has demanded it be stopped.

The cost of this war and the others that preceded it can be found at a Red Cross centre for the disabled in Kabul. It is here that Ghrana sat alone in her wheelchair as just a single example of the price ordinary Afghans have paid over the past 30 years.

Most places would have their work cut out dealing with the victims of the Soviet occupation, the chaos it left behind and the Taliban regime. But in this corner of the capital, the steady flow of new patients continues to grow.

Raz Mohammed comes from Sangin, in Helmand. He lost one of his arms as a result of an air strike on the first day of Ramadan last year. Eight members of his family were killed, the youngest of which was a girl aged two or three.

“It is like it is always night. All the people have left that area, they have gone elsewhere in the district or come to Kabul or gone to Pakistan. Now there is the Taliban and the Americans. They have just destroyed the country,” he said.

Mr Mohammed said insurgents had fired on troops from near his home, but melted away before the air strike. His brother, Sayed Shah, explained the dilemma faced by families trapped in the middle of a guerrilla war.

“The Americans come to fight with the Taliban, then they retreat a little bit and hide. The Taliban shoot at them and escape. Then the Americans ask for the air force and they start bombing us. Even if there are no Talibs in the village, they destroy the village. If there are children in the houses, they bomb them,” he said.

“The people are not united. One family likes the Taliban, one family doesn’t. No one can say anything about it. Some people are friends with the Taliban and if you say something they will inform the Taliban and you will be executed.

“Half of the district likes the Taliban, half doesn’t. If we are one nation that works together there will be no Taliban and no Americans. We can then build the country ourselves.”

This kind of fear and anger is prevalent across the south. The superior technology and overwhelming military might of Washington and its allies means people expect them to be able to discriminate between insurgents and civilians. The fact they often either cannot or are unwilling to do so says much about the way things are going.

Afghans frequently use two catchall terms when talking about international troops: “Foreigners” or “Americans”. The cautious optimism they had after 2001 is fading fast. Instead, the various countries that have soldiers here – including Britain, Canada, Holland, Italy and France – are seen as a homogenous mass that has brought them widespread insecurity.

In the past year or so, the Nato and US coalitions have become aware of public opinion turning against them, particularly over the issue of civilian casualties. Sometimes their leaders issue statements of regret, at others they give versions of events that completely contradict the accounts of witnesses and the government, but are nevertheless carried in western media.

A common theme throughout this propaganda effort is the idea that the Taliban deliberately kill ordinary Afghans, an assertion that the militants deny.

The UN also made this distinction when looking at the bloodshed of 2008. It said insurgents were responsible for 55 per cent of all civilian deaths, using methods such as roadside bombings and suicide attacks that “have shown an increasing willingness to inflict harm” on innocent people.

Nadir Malik Zada had just arrived at his clothing store in July when a vehicle packed with explosives rammed into the Indian Embassy across the road. Six months later he recovered the hearing in his left ear, but even now loud noises hurt.

Having also had his home and land destroyed by the Taliban regime, he has no desire to see the rebels return to power. What happened that summer morning, however, has clearly undermined his confidence in the world around him.

“I don’t know who was to blame. Was it the government? Was it Pakistan? Was it our enemies? Was it some people who were trying to get themselves a position in the government?”

Scores of civilians were killed in the attack and more than 100 injured. The Taliban never claimed responsibility, and today high concrete blast walls surround the embassy, but the damage has already been done.

As the UN pointed out, innocent deaths of any kind result in further disillusionment with the government and the international community. In their persistent use of air strikes and descriptions of the insurgents’ “unashamed disregard for Afghan lives”, Nato and US forces still do not appear to have grasped this.

Thousands of extra US troops will arrive in Afghanistan over the coming months to fight a conflict Mr Obama has adopted as his own. Whatever their intentions, many soldiers will be deployed to areas inhabited by people who have already lost friends and family for reasons that make no sense to them. The potential for more death and despair is great.

Each war has its defining battlegrounds, names that live long in the memory for the horrific suffering they witnessed. In Vietnam there was Hue; in Iraq, Fallujah. In Afghanistan, the list is still growing.

At a refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul, the tents and mud huts have taken on a look of permanence. Kids covered in dirt play amongst the rubbish and a stream of sewage winds into the distance.

When a strange visitor arrives, people soon form a crowd and complain they have received no help. They want food, money, anything. For a brief moment some photos are pulled out showing two dead children, blood splattered across their chests and heads, their eyes shut as if peacefully asleep.

“There is fighting in all of the world,” said Sardar Mohammed, one of the camp’s leaders.

“They are fighting in Uruzgan, Kandahar, Helmand … everywhere there is an earthquake, it is not only in one place.”

From those three provinces in the south, more than 700 families have set up base in this squalid part of Kabul to avoid the unrest that they insist is “all the foreigners fault”. For some, it is just another chapter in a nomadic existence brought about by violence.

“During the Russian time we left our house and went to Pakistan. In Pakistan we had lots of problems, so we came back here. Then everyone picked up guns and fought each other,” said Mr Mohammed, who is from Tirin Kot in Uruzgan.

For years now a number of prominent Afghans have voiced their anger at the price being paid by civilians. As far back as 2006, Mr Karzai shed tears on national TV over the growing death toll. In parliament there have been calls for ceasefires and a date to be set for the withdrawal of foreign troops.

The outrage regarding air strikes seemed to come to a head in August when 90 innocent people, including 60 children and 15 women were killed in the western province of Herat. Images of relatives grieving amid the wreckage of their homes added further insult to the American military’s initial count of only five to seven civilian fatalities.

But all of this was before events in Farah this month propelled the name of yet another province to notoriety. Once it became evident that large numbers of Afghans had died after a battle there, the US again reached for smoke and mirrors.

Citing anonymous “Defence Department officials” The New York Times suggested the Taliban may have killed the civilians with grenades, then displayed the bodies and claimed an air strike was responsible.

That explanation has convinced no one here. About 1,000 students from Kabul University protested against the massacre, chanting “Death to America”. Among them was Mahmoud, a 19-year-old.

“Afghanistan is a place where a lot of people care about Islam, therefore the foreign soldiers must leave,” he said. “Now 10 to 15 people are killed every day in Kandahar, in Helmand. From Ghazni to Herat there is killing, nothing else.”

Afghan lawmakers have carried out an investigation to establish what happened in Farah. They concluded that an air strike killed 140 civilians, including 93 children. The Red Cross has also stated that women and children were among dozens killed.

Mohammed Naim Farahi, an MP from the province, blamed the carnage on a network of local informers who pass intelligence to coalition forces. Asked what impact all the heartbreak of the past eight years was having on Afghans, he said: “It’s not just the Taliban who are fighting. All the community is standing against this government.”

csands@thenational.ae